Aiden Riddle
by Helen Nurse
Summary: Harry Potter disappeared when Lord Voldemort was vanquished, but what if even the Dark lord wasn't who everyone believed? Extremely AU!


Prolog

When Voldemort had heard about a prophecy concerning him and a child, he dismissed it with a laugh. He didn't need to worry about some idiotic prophecy that a drunk, defunct fraud made to get a job. He thought about the man that he kept hidden in his own basement, and his not even caring about his confinement. He'd found the man wandering the moors of Scotland soon after he finished graduating from Hogwarts. He had been muttering about "Finding Aiden," which he did not understand.

The man was useful in the fact that Voldemort assumed his identity, and used an anagram of his name to create the one he had used for the past twenty years: Lord Voldemort.

* * *

Months later, he went to see Riddle in his cell to gloat after winning another victory against those who defied him. When he came in, Riddle looked at him with unseeing eyes, and said in a voice other than his own _**"The one to defeat the stealer of names has come. He will travel to destroy the one who took his family from him. He was born in the first hours of August to those whom defied thrice the stealer of names... He comes."**_

The man everyone knew as Voldemort ran from the cell, and called his supporters.

He demanded that everyone look for those that matched the description of the family that would create the person to defeat him. When they returned stating that the Potter family was the only one that had a son born in the early hours of August first, he made a plan to attack them on All Hallows Eve.

* * *

When Lord Voldemort disappeared after attacking the Potter family, whispers raged about the son being the reason for the end of a Dark Lord. What few knew however, is that the Boy-Who-Lived had disappeared.

* * *

July 26th, 1944

Tom Riddle sits at his desk in the small flat he shares in Diagon Alley writing a letter to one of his few friends, when a bright flash and a child's sudden wails startle him. He turned around to find a very small child on his bed crying. He walks over to him and picks him up while making shushing sounds to calm him. Eventually the baby stops crying, and Tom sighs with relief. He uses the Floo, and calls his best friend to come over. He steps back, and allows her to come through.

Minerva McGonagall didn't like using the Floo, but she heard the urgency in her Slytherin friend's voice. When she came through he quietly led her to his room, where the baby was sleeping on his bed. "He appeared in a flash of light, wailing. I calmed him down enough to sleep thankfully." Tom explained with a sigh of relief. He remembered the sleepless nights he'd spent in the orphanage calming the babies and toddlers with his magic as a child.

"He looks like he could pass as your son." Minerva replied with a smile.

Tom smiled back. "He came to me for a reason. Magic doesn't give people chances like this without a purpose... Would you like to help me raise him? I know you've been apprenticed to Professor Dumbledoor."

"Yes. And since you'll be Head Boy, you can make time to help care for him. I'll explain that someone left him on your doorstep and you took him in. Professor Dippet be happy to let you keep him, especially considering how he dotes on you." Minerva replied.

* * *

As the years passed, Tom and Minerva fell into a lifestyle of caring for the little boy they christened Aiden Harper Riddle. Ten years later when Aiden got his letter, Tom was as proud as any father. But what he didn't expect was a letter on the first of November from Headmaster Dippet saying that is son had been lost after a tornado made of magic swirled around him at the All Hallows Eve Feast, making him disappear.

He spent all of that year searching, until one night he disappeared, never to be seen from again.

* * *

Chapter 1

Great Hall October 31, 1994 7:00 pm

The students from the three schools sat in the Great Hall after the choosing of the three Champions, celebrating. Headmaster Dumbledoor looked at the Tri Wizard Cup, waiting for it to extinguish. The cup flared again, and another piece of parchment ejected from the flames with a shower of purple sparks.

He caught the slip, and read it in disbelief "Harry Potter."

As he pronounced the last syllable, a portal opened near the ceiling of the Great Hall. A small, black-haired teen dropped from it with a scream of terror. The adult wizards all shot spells at the boy to slow him down, allowing him to reach the floor safely.

The boy looked to be in an old-fashioned set of student robes from Slytherin. When he looked up, he gasped "Professor?"

When the head of Gryffindor house reached the fallen boy, Professor McGonagall gasped "Aiden?"

"Do I know you, Madam?" The shy boy asked tentatively.

"You've been missing a long time, you silly little scamp." Professor McGonagall scolded.

"M-minnie?" Aiden asked fearfully, tears threatening to spill from his eyes.

"Let's go to my office. We can talk about why you came here later." She replied, holding her hand out to the small boy. He greatfully took it, following her out of the Great Hall.

* * *

When they arrived in her office, she had him sit in a soft, plush, wing-backed armchair. "Oh, Aiden... I always wondered what had happened to you." McGonagall said sadly, hugging him before summoning her own armchair.

"Minnie, what happened? Where's my Papa?"

Minerva sighed, looking at the little boy that she had adopted as a son fifty years ago. "No one knows. Tom disappeared soon after you did."

"But... He loved you! Papa would never leave you behind!"

"He what?" Minerva asked in surprise, before shaking her head. "Never mind that for now. Aiden... Or I should say Mr. Potter, you fell through that portal because your name was drawn for the Tri Wizard Tournament."

"But... I'm a first year! I'll die!"

"I know, there's a reason it was disbanded. This year they hoped to minimize the dangers with safeguards. You'll be the fourth Champion."

Aiden looked down, and started to cry. "I want Papa... I want my Papa here..."

"I know, scamp. I know." Minerva said with a sigh, pulling the boy into her lap, letting him cry on her shoulder. Not only was that little boy in her lap one of the sweetest children she had ever known, his adopted father had been her best friend. When Aiden had fallen asleep in her arms, she asked to the empty room "Oh Tom... Your little one needs you so much. Where are you?"


End file.
